I'm not so sure your alleged "false impression" is necessarily mutually exclusive to what I interpreted Napolitano as saying, and may not really be false at all. If Zimmerman is/was questioned about anything he said about the account and he waives his 5th Amendment protections, that's fair game for cops and prosecutors. I don't think he has to specifically say, "On advice of my attorney, I am invoking my 5th Amendment right to refuse to answer your questions." As long as he stays quiet, he is perfectly within his 5th rights, whether he states that's why he's staying quiet or not. So he can be questioned, but whether he invokes the 5th or not, he is under no obligation to answer them.
In short, he can do as you say you thought was the requirement and invoke his 5th protections upon the onset of questioning, or he can waive his rights and sing like a canary, or he can just STFU like he has a brain in his head, but throughout the process, the onus is upon him. He is neither obligated to STFU, nor is he obligated to sing.
I think the act of invoking out loud one's 5th Amendment right is as much theater as it is useful to a defendant in asserting his/her rights. Mostly people appearing before Congress do it. I don't think it happens very often in courts or in LE questioning sessions, but I might be wrong about that. I just know if I'm ever arrested, I will not speak to investigators unless my attorney tells me that it's in my best interest to do so, and even he will have some convincing to do before I'll acquiesce.
Blues
I did some further research and found this quote of the judge interacting with the defense team:
"Does your client get to sit there like a potted plant and lead the court down the primrose path? That's the issue," Lester said in revoking Zimmerman's bond. "He can't sit back and obtain the benefit of a lower bond based upon those material falsehoods."
If this is in fact a literal description of Zimmerman by the judge, then I can understand the point made by Napolitano. It would seem Zimmerman kept his mouth closed.
If these facts are true, the wife has more than just perjury to worry about:
"De la Rionda presented to the judge during the revocation hearing a partial transcript of telephone conversations Zimmerman had with his wife from jail, days before the original bond hearing. Zimmerman and his wife discussed the amount of money raised from the website, and Zimmerman spoke in code to tell his wife how to make fund transfers, according to the transcript. The code referred to amounts of "$15" in place of "$150,000."
"Jeffrey Neiman, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said cash transactions in excess of $10,000 usually trigger a reporting requirement by the bank to multiple government agencies — including the IRS. "If Mrs. Zimmerman intentionally structured the financial transactions in a manner to keep the offense under $10,000, not only may she have committed perjury in the state case, but she also may have run afoul of several federal statutes and could face serious federal criminal charges," Neiman wrote in an email to The Associated Press."
As BluesStringer noted, it would certainly appear she did structure the amounts in order to remain under $10k:
"Records show Shellie Zimmerman in the days before the hearing transferred $74,000 in eight smaller amounts ranging from $7,500 to $9,990, from her husband's credit union account to hers, according to an arrest affidavit. It also shows that $47,000 was transferred from George Zimmerman's account to his sister's in the days before the bond hearing."
It doesn't appear likely to me that either Zimmerman or his wife will be receiving an invitation to join MENSA anytime soon.
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